YES, OIL HIT ANOTHER ALL TIME HIGH

The price of petroleum zoomed above $135/barrel today, and settled at $134.55 for the day. Why? Nothing special, only further signs that Peak Oil is near.

WHERE WILL NUCLEAR ENERGY BE IN TEN YEARS?

World leaders will continue to wrestle with North Korea and Iran, worry about radioactive terrorist bombs, the safety of nuclear power plants and where to put the wastes. The specter of climate warming will spark a resumption of planning and construction of fission facilities, each in the 1000 MW and larger sizes.

Smaller reactors, all fission, defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency as less than 300 Mw, will become more prominent. South Africa, with the help of China, is developing something called the Pebblebed Modular Nuclear reactor, supposedly described as inherently safe, and these could find niche markets. The Beijing experimental reactor is only 10 MW, but the South African designs are at 170 MW. Chinergy’s plan is to build a 195 MW module and a U.S. group is developing a 285 MW reactor. Perhaps ships and locomotives will someday be thusly powered. But these all will use U-235 (remember, there is only 1% of this in deposits). Hmmm, maybe bring back the breeder reactor? Read Chapter 1 of Book 1 (http://SimpleSolutionsBook1.com) on how I helped kill the Clinch River Breeder Reactor back in the early 70's when I worked in the U.S. Senate.

China plans to build forty new conventional nuclear plants by 2020, bringing their production up from 2.3% of generation to 6%. The 2050 goal is 150,000 MW of installed nuclear capacity, more than the 100,000 MW of the United States, the country with the current highest capacity. But the last nuclear power plant coming on line in the U.S. was 1996, with zero additional facilities currently approved. The International Atomic Energy Agency says that nuclear energy will grow from the 16% to 27% of worldwide electricity generated by 2030. All this is fission, the dirty kind of nuclear power.

Hot fusion remains at least two generations away, while cold fusion could power automobiles in your lifetime, or maybe never at all. Fusion will be cleaner, for the only nuclear waste problem will be tritium, with a half-life of 12.3 years, and there is enough fuel for a very long time. But the commercialization of this option remains today on the dreamy wish list.